Nuremberg Icj Timeline 1474-1868
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NUREMBERG ICJ TIMELINE 1474-1868 1474 Trial of Peter von Hagenbach In connection with offenses committed while governing ter- ritory in the Upper Alsace region on behalf of the Duke of 1625 Hugo Grotius Publishes On the Law of Burgundy, Peter von Hagenbach is tried and sentenced to death War and Peace by an ad hoc tribunal of twenty-eight judges representing differ- ent local polities. The crimes charged, including murder, mass Dutch jurist and philosopher Hugo Grotius, one of the principal rape and the planned extermination of the citizens of Breisach, founders of international law with such works as Mare Liberum are characterized by the prosecution as “trampling under foot (On the Freedom of the Seas), publishes De Jure Belli ac Pacis the laws of God and man.” Considered history’s first interna- (On the Law of War and Peace). Considered his masterpiece, tional war crimes trial, it is noted for rejecting the defense of the book elucidates and secularizes the topic of just war, includ- superior orders and introducing an embryonic version of crimes ing analysis of belligerent status, adequate grounds for initiating against humanity. war and procedures to be followed in the inception, conduct, and conclusion of war. 1758 Emerich de Vattel Lays Foundation for Formulating Crime of Aggression In his seminal treatise The Law of Nations, Swiss jurist Emerich de Vattel alludes to the great guilt of a sovereign who under- 1815 Declaration Relative to the Universal takes an “unjust war” because he is “chargeable with all the Abolition of the Slave Trade evils, all the horrors of the war: all the effusion of blood, the The first international instrument to condemn slavery, the desolation of families, the rapine, the acts of violence, the rav- Declaration Relative to the Universal Abolition of the Slave ages, the conflagrations, are his works and his crimes . in con- Trade is issued by the Congress of Vienna to resolve issues aris- sequence of it [he] is guilty of a crime against mankind . .” De ing from the Napoleonic wars. The Declaration qualifies slavery Vattel thus provides the theoretical underpinnings for the mod- as a scourge to humanity and recalls that numerous European ern formulation of the crime of aggression. governments have either abolished the trade or resolved to do so. Subsequently, countries enter into a skein of piecemeal mul- 1856 Paris Declaration Respecting Maritime Law tilateral and bilateral agreements prohibiting slavery that are enforced with varying degrees of success. More effective aboli- Issued following the Crimean War, the Paris Declaration tion is realized with the 1926 Convention to Suppress the Slave Respecting Maritime Law abolishes all forms of piracy and pri- Trade and Slavery and the 1956 Supplementary Convention, vateering (government authorization of privately owned ships which together define and criminalize slavery and related to attack and capture enemy vessels during wartime). It also practices such as debt bondage and serfdom. In 2000, the provides rules for maritime neutrality and regulates the con- UN adopts the Trafficking Protocol to the Convention against duct of blockades. Transnational Organized Crime that aims to prevent and com- bat trafficking in persons, especially women and children; pro- 1863 Lieber Code tect and assist victims of trafficking; and promote cooperation among states in order to meet those objectives. During the US Civil War, German-American jurist Francis Lieber prepares for the Union Army Instructions for the Government of Armies of the United States in the Field, promulgated by President Lincoln in April 1863 as General Order No. 100. This document, the first codification of the laws and customs of war, 1864 First Geneva Convention lays out specific rules for protecting civilians and their property, A book about the bloody Battle of Solferino (1859) in Italy, writ- treating prisoners and enemy wounded humanely, and limiting ten by Swiss eyewitness Henri Dunant, shocks the world. It leads military targets to those that are deemed essential. to creation of the International Committee of the Red Cross (1863), and to a 16-nation conference convened in Geneva in August 1864, which adopts the Convention for the Amelioration 1868 St. Petersburg Declaration of the Condition of the Wounded in Armies in the Field, com- monly known as the “Geneva Convention of 1864.” The Adopted at an international conference convened by Russia, Convention provides for: (1) relief to the wounded regardless the St. Petersburg Declaration prohibits “the employment of nationality; (2) neutrality/inviolability of medical personnel; of such arms” as “would uselessly aggravate the suffering of and (3) the distinctive sign of the red cross on a white ground. disabled men, or render their death inevitable” and would be The subsequent Geneva Conventions of 1906, 1929 and 1949 will “contrary to the laws of humanity.” To this end, the Declaration build on this platform. Dunant is awarded the first Nobel Peace forbids the use of certain fragmenting, explosive and incendiary Prize in 1901, sharing it with Frédéric Passy. ammunition. Created by Prof. Gregory S. Gordon for Schulberg Productions, Inc. page 1 NUREMBERG ICJ TIMELINE 1899-1928 1899 & 1907 The Hague Conventions Adopted, respectively, at 1899 and 1907 international peace con- ferences held in The Hague, Netherlands, these Conventions 1915 Allied Joint Declaration Regarding are considered the foundational treaties for the regula- the Armenian Genocide tion of the conduct of hostilities during wartime. The Hague On May 24, 1915, as the Ottoman Empire is massacring the Conventions set forth parameters regarding the means and Armenian population within its territories during World War I methods of warfare, including a ban on a number of weapons (1914-1918), France, Great Britain and Russia issue a joint decla- and methods of warfare (including use of “dum dum” bullets ration asserting that “[i]n the presence of these new crimes of which expand in the body, poison weapons, and attacks from Turkey against humanity and civilization, the allied Governments hot air balloons), categorization of prisoners of war, protection publicly inform the [Ottoman Government] that they will hold of neutral parties, occupation of territory, and rules for attacks personally responsible for the said crimes all members of the on military targets. They also take many of the principles of the Ottoman Government as well as those of its agents who are 1864 Geneva Convention and adapt them to maritime warfare. found to be involved in such massacres.” This is thought to con- Finally, they also include what is known as the “Martens Clause” stitute the first use, within an international law context, of the (drafted by Russian delegate Fyodor Martens), which embeds term “crimes against humanity.” an overarching moral code into humanitarian law by providing: “Until a more complete code of the laws of war has been issued, the High Contracting Parties deem it expedient to declare that, in cases not included in the Regulations adopted by them, the inhabitants and the belligerents remain under the protection and the rule of the principles of the law of nations, as they re- sult from the usages established among civilized peoples, from the laws of humanity, and the dictates of the public conscience.” 1919 Treaty of Versailles The Treaty of Versailles, signed June 28, 1919, formally ends hostilities between the Allies and Germany in the wake of World 1919 Turkish Courts Martial of Armenian War I and provides, in Article 227, for creation of an ad hoc in- Genocide Perpetrators ternational criminal tribunal to prosecute Germany’s Kaiser Following the Ottoman Empire’s defeat in World War I, a new Wilhelm II for initiating the war; and, in Article 228, for prosecu- government is formed and, in February 1919, it establishes tion of German military personnel accused of violating the laws courts martial to prosecute members of the “Young Turk” re- and customs of war. The ad hoc tribunal is never established, gime responsible for the Armenian genocide. Pursuant to these the Kaiser is never prosecuted, and only a few low-level German courts martial, a small group of lower-level officials is punished, war criminals are tried and lightly punished. but the fate of the major perpetrators is supposed to be de- cided by a treaty between the Allies and the Ottoman Empire, and they are ultimately able to evade justice. 1919 Covenant of the League of Nations The Covenant of the League of Nations is concluded as part of the Treaty of Versailles. Article 10 of the Covenant provides 1920 Treaty of Sèvres that member States will “respect and preserve as against ex- ternal aggression the territorial integrity and existing political The Treaty of Sèvres formally ends hostilities between the independence” of the other member States. Allies and the Ottoman Empire after World War I and provides for the trial by the Allies of Turkish war criminals accused of violating the laws and customs of war and of engaging in the Armenian massacres. The Treaty never enters into force and is superseded by the Treaty of Lausanne (1923), which is silent on 1921 The Leipzig Trials the issue of criminal responsibility pursuant to an accompanying Resisting Allied trials of war crimes perpetrators pursuant to Declaration of Amnesty. Versailles Treaty Article 228, the Germans agree to prosecute only a limited number of low-ranking suspects, and only under German law, in Leipzig’s Criminal Senate of the Imperial Court 1928 Kellogg-Briand Pact of Germany. While the Germans permit Allied representatives On August 27, 1928, in Paris, per the initiative of US Secretary to participate as co-prosecutors, local pressure insures that of State Frank Kellogg and French Minister of Foreign Affairs only a few minor military officials are indicted, and they receive Aristide Briand, several nations sign the General Treaty for light punishments.